


cool?

by bestliars



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Developing Relationship, M/M, Minnesota Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 14:49:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5544008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six questions Matt Dumba asks other Wild defensemen about love, featuring five totally not helpful responses, and exactly one good answer from his all-time favorite, Jonas Brodin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cool?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gigantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigantic/gifts).



**one**

Matt does not start learning Swedish to improve his sex life — not exclusively anyway. 

It’s a really interesting language, and he’s all about expanding his mind, and it’ll be cool to understand what Chris and Brods are saying all the time. There are a lot of good reasons for him to learn Swedish; he wants to be a citizen of the world.

Also Jonas doesn’t make a lot of noise in bed, and when he does it’s mostly to mumble to himself in Swedish, super quiet and breathy. Matt has no idea what he’s saying, but it’s seriously hot. He’d like to find out.

At least, he thinks he’d like to find out? He’s curious, sure, but also, like, who knows if it’s anything he actually wants to know? Jonas could be saying absolutely anything. _Anything._ Maybe Matt is better off just admiring how hot and incoherent Jonas is than he would be adding more words to their relationship.

But anyway. He’s started learning Swedish. Just a little bit, here and there. More from Chris than from Jonas, but yeah. He’s starting to pick things up, starting to understand parts of conversations. It’s pretty cool.

Jonas has started texting him in Swedish, and it’s mostly stuff he understands, not stuff he has to go to google translate for. They aren’t really dating, not in so many words, but like, they’re something?

They’ve been friends for ages now, have been fooling around since last year. They’re really close, and, like. It’s gotten to the point where Matt maybe needs to say something, but he doesn’t know what. 

If he’s going to say anything, which he should, he kind of thinks it would be cool if he said it in Swedish? Cause like. He’s learning Swedish to talk to Jonas. That’s a hell of a gesture.

After Jonas himself, Matt’s second best resource for learning the Swedish language is Chris. Or maybe third best after the internet, but the internet isn’t Matt’s roommate. Matt doesn’t know if Chris would be the first person he wants to talk to about this stuff normally, but Chris is just always right there.

He knows about Matt and Jonas because he’s _always_ right there. Matt’s a considerate guy, he keeps the boning to his bedroom, and makes some effort not to keep it down. If they want to be loud they can go to Brods’s place, cause he lives alone. But still, Matt’s not going to hide what’s going on under his own roof, the way Jonas and him sit together on the couch isn’t strictly bros, and Chris is there to tease them about being adorable and shit. Matt doesn’t even mind, he _knows_ they’re adorable. Jonas might look like a bunch of angles, all flatness and long limbs, but he’s actually decent at cuddling, which Matt appreciates.

Jonas sleeps over often enough, and Chris is cool with it. He’ll make them all breakfast sometimes. He’s the only one of the three of them who’s figured out the magic behind pancakes. 

Matt really likes it when Jonas stays over. First thing in the morning Jonas is all sleepy and extra mumbly, not letting Matt move, saying, “Stanna,” which Matt has learned is the Swedish word for stay, as he holds onto Matt’s arm. Matt will _stanna_ , finger comb tame Jonas’s bedhead, and enjoy how warm it is.

Matt wishes he could have whole conversations with first-thing-in-the-morning Jonas.

That’s why he asks Chris, “How do you say, ‘Did you sleep well?’ in Swedish?” 

Chris looks at him like he’s weird, but he isn’t weird — Brods is weird. Matt is just rolling with it.

Chris still answers him. “Sov du gott.”

Matt repeats it. “Sov du gott,” rolling it around in his mouth.

Chris nods. Good enough. Now if only that was the question he really needs to ask.

 

**two**

Talking to Marco about this sort of thing is good cause Marco’s done shit. He’s a little bit older, a little bit wilder, and has made some choices that Matt maybe wouldn’t consider. Marco doesn’t always have good advice, but he’s got a different point of view, and is a good guy to talk to if Matt wants to like, contextualize, and get a big picture view of his little problems.

He likes going over to Marco’s place to hang out, talk and play pool, and be comforted that it’s totally okay that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. 

He really doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s learned how to say so many dirty things in Swedish. He repeats the best of it for Marco, who seems impressed.

Marco can curse fluently in three languages, he probably thinks Matt’s attempts are cute. But like, Marco can have normal conversations in three languages — Matt’s Swedish is only appropriate for swearing at video games or in bed. Matt doesn’t know what he’s doing.

He knows he can ask Marco absolutely anything, like, “What's the weirdest thing you've done just cause you're boning someone?”

Marco raises an eyebrow. Matt reconsiders the question: does he really want to know? Maybe not.

“But like — this is not so weird. Learning Swedish — that's like — cool.”

“Are you learning Swedish just cause you and Brods are fucking?”

Matt thinks about it. Realizes he doesn't really want to think about it. Says, “Yes?”

“Sure buddy. That's fine.”

“You've done way weirder stuff haven't you?”

Marco smirks. Matt has so many questions and wants so few answers.

Learning Swedish is not a sex exclusive pursuit, he’s pretty sure. Like, that possibly was the initial inspiration, but it has transcended the realm of boning. If it was just a sex thing he would have learned a few dirty things and moved along. He wouldn’t be trying so hard, wouldn’t have put duolingo on his phone, wouldn’t have started trying to talk to Chris in Swedish when they’re at home. He wants to understand Jonas, including out of bed. He wants Jonas to be able to know what Jonas is thinking, and it doesn’t seem fair that Jonas is always the one searching for words in a second language. Matt might not be much good yet, but he’s trying?

Jonas never asked him for this, but he’s trying, cause he wanted to give it a try, cause he cared, cause. Well.

That’s the question isn’t it? What is he doing, caring this much? Is that really something he wants to do? Is it even something that’s within his control anymore? He doesn’t know. He might just care this much, without ever making a decision.

That’s a scary thing to think about. For today he’s going to shove those thoughts down, and listen to Marco’s terrible stories. The greatest hits of weird shit Marco has done because he was boning someone include memorizing a bunch of Renaissance poetry in Italian, attempting to cook mussels in wine, and spending thirty-six hours pretending he was interested in Scientology. That story has Matt in stitches, lying on the carpet; it’s the perfect distraction from picking over the thing with Brods.

 

**three**

Brods gets the flu, which is a major bummer, because no making out, and also he might not play in Boston. It also means Ollie’s called up, which means Matt has a road roommate for the first time since Grao got hurt in game one.

He hasn’t had a chance to hang out with Ollie since camp, so this is cool. He’s like, six months older than Ollie, and he never gets to be older than people. He can be the voice of knowledge and experience here. He’s a worldly NHL player, while Ollie is just hoping to get into his first game.

They have a lot of gossip to catch up on since October. In October Matt and Jonas were still only — well, Matt isn’t sure what they were then, just like he isn’t sure what they are now, but he knows it’s changed. 

Ollie is good to talk to about this, cause he knows them, he’s _team,_ but he hasn’t been around. He’s as close to an outside perspective as Matt’s gonna get.

He tries to explain it, and even feels like he’s doing a decent enough job, but then like, not really? Not completely? However he describes it to Ollie, he’s definitely missing something. It gets later and later, and the conversation get vaguer and vaguer as they brush their teeth and get ready for bed.

This isn’t where Matt expected to end up, but he finds himself asking, “But like, how do you know you’re _in love?_ I’m like — I’m in like. Really, seriously, in like. Isn’t that cool enough?”

“Cool enough?”

“Or good enough?” Matt is willing to admit, he has no idea what he’s talking about here. “Nah. Cool. I think the important thing is that it’s cool enough.”

“Dude,” Ollie says, making quite a face.

“Is that wrong?” Matt asks.

“I think that means you’re probably not in love. I don’t think being in love is about being cool?”

“Huh.” That makes sense. Ollie might have a point there. Matt will have to make sure it doesn’t go to his head.

They don’t stay up talking much later. Ollie might play in his first NHL game tomorrow, if Jonas doesn’t feel any better. Ollie is a good friend, but Matt has no doubt about who he’d rather be playing with — Brods all the way.

He misses being with Jonas. They were never road roomies before this year, when they’ve been able to take things into their own hands and hole up in one of their singles. Not every night, and never for naps, but they’ve had a lot of sleepovers. Jonas kicks, and snores, and has the most wicked cute bedhead first thing in the morning. English comes slower to him that early. He won’t say much, or he’ll use Swedish simple enough for Matt to understand.

By all objective measurements Ollie is a fine roommate. He just isn’t Jonas. No one else is Jonas. 

Matt’s wound up sharing rooms with three different Swedish defensemen, but Jonas is the only one he picked, the only one he wants to keep around. 

 

**four**

Matt’s been considering the relationship question for a while now, long enough that he knows the answer isn’t inside him. He needs like, wisdom and guidance to figure this out. It’s gotten to the point where he’s wondering if his worry is contributing to not playing as well as he expects of himself, which is a scary thought. That’s really big — he knows whatever Brods and him are doing is important, but he isn’t sure he’s okay with it being that huge.

Not playing well and feeling sort of lost is the kind of thing he’d talk to Jonas about, but well… Not about this. 

So he does the next best thing. He asks Suts, who’s like, Future-Brods, midwestern Brods, Brods settled down seven years down the line. They understand each other. It’s kind of weird, but Matt is big into not judging weird shit, especially weird shit involving Jonas Brodin. 

Of course, it’s Suts, so it’s not like he can go, “I have been having complicated feelings about your protege, could we discuss them please?” That would go poorly.

Matt honestly has no idea what would happen if he tried, other than Ryan being super lost. Matt doesn’t have a real plan here, he just sits down next to Suts and starts talking. It becomes obvious pretty early on that trying to talk to Ryan about relationship problems would be just about as helpful as trying to talk to a brick wall, except maybe worse, cause a brick wall wouldn’t get confused and then look at him weird. So Matt isn’t going to go there, he’s just going to keep talking, cause that’s what he does — he’s a spectacular conversationalist.

In the end they just wind up talking about life. Matt can’t steer them towards the idea of romance, but he can turn Ryan talking about working at the rink into something more interesting. Ryan might be shit to talk to about relationship crap, but he’s a really good defenseman, and caught in the right mood he’ll talk about hockey, and he can be really patient explaining things. Also, he’s kind of old. Like, thirty isn’t actually old, but for their defense it is. He’s the elder statesman. He’s done things, been places, knows stuff.

Matt wants to know stuff. He wants to play better, and earn more ice time. This year’s been hard sometimes. Suts’ advice is mostly unsolicited, but not unwanted — Matt came looking for guidance.

“Don’t try to do so much,” Suts says. “Keep it simple, keep it solid.”

Matt nods. He gets it, he knows this. It’s only that knowing something and actually doing it in the middle of the game isn’t always the same thing. He can’t let himself get caught up and jumbled: simple and solid. That’s the way to go.

Suts says, “You gotta remember that when the puck’s on your stick you control the pace. Slow it down, stay calm.”

“I’m trying,” Matt says. 

“I know.” Suts smiles at him, a wide middle America dad smile, encouraging and maybe kinda clueless. “You’re gonna figure it out, kid. You’ve got talent, stick with it and I know you’re gonna figure it out.” 

Honestly, that’s good to hear. It maybe shouldn’t mean as much as it does, but it helps. Suts knows what he’s doing, and he says Matt’s going to figure it out, so that’ll probably be what happen. He just can’t let himself worry about it too much. He has to worry exactly the right amount.

Matt keeps thinking about it, turning Suts’ words over and over in his head. Keep it simple, keep it solid. Slow it down, stay calm. Good advice for getting his game back in order, sure, but beyond that, those aren’t bad principles to apply to the undefined thing he’s got going on with Brods? Simple, solid, slow, calm — he needs more of that in his life.

Leave it to Suts to fail at giving love life advice, but giving hockey advance that’s perfectly applicable to the mess Matt’s found himself in.

 

**five**

It takes a while, but Matt does actually wind up talking to the adult defenseman he knows who’s in a proper adult relationship and actually capable of talking about human emotions with descriptive words, without the help of sports cliches. Matt probably should have come to Jerry earlier than this, but he sometimes forgets that Jerry’s an adult with a wife and kids. Jerry doesn’t seem old enough to have all that figured out, but somehow he does. He married his childhood sweetheart, which basically makes him an expert about this sort of stuff.

Matt says he wants to talk about the power play, and they do talk about that some, and then Matt listens to Spurg talk about his kids for a while. He needs to be patient and wait to get to the big issue.

They do get there eventually, and Matt finds himself asking, “What do you think about young love?”

“As like?”

Matt shrugs. “Categorically? Speaking from experience.”

Spurg looks at him.

“I guess it’s good? I fell in love when I was young, and it was good, but I don’t know if my relationship makes me qualified to make any judgements about it, like, categorically.”

“Would you recommend it?” Matt asks. Jerry did really good with that young love thing — he never got over it. He fell once, and settled down. Now he’s married with kids and stuff, even though he isn’t actually all that much older than Matt. Older enough.

Matt thinks he’s going to want all that, someday, probably. In the long view he’s interested in settling down, thinks he’d be good with kids. He doesn’t know if he can imagine Jonas being a part of that, but he can hardly picture himself in that future. It’s too far off.

He can’t let himself get distracted looking ahead, not if he wants hear how Jerry answers the question. Would he recommend young love?

“I dunno?” Jerry shrugs. “Like, it’s not a one-size-fits all thing. _Young love _isn’t like, a specific thing. You’re young right now — if you’re in love, then there you are. It’s what you make of it.”__

__That sounds true. That makes sense. It isn’t actually in any way helpful to hear. If Matt knew what he was in the middle of then he wouldn’t be asking questions about it._ _

__“Thanks, I guess,” Matt says, cause he knows Jerry was trying to help. He’s gotten a lot of advice, but it sure looks like this is going to be one muddle he has to figure out on his own._ _

__

__**plus** _ _

__As much as Matt’s been worrying about it, things between Jonas and him have still been really good. There haven’t been any problems, nothing that needs fixing, nothing anyone would say deserves worrying over. It’s the greatness of their thing that had Matt all tied in knots, but he’s going to try to relax on that._ _

__He still doesn’t know what they’re doing. Still doesn’t have a real clue what he wants to call it, doesn’t know what proposition he needs a translation for. They just are what they are, and that’s whatever._ _

__They hang out a lot. They’ll go to lunch after practice, then head home and play videogames for a while. Then they’ll nap if there’s a game, or fool around, or sometimes both. With Chris in Iowa it’s only a matter of time until they fuck on the couch, but so far Matt’s shown some self restraint, which is impressive, considering how he’s only twenty-one and sex with Jonas is seriously hot._ _

__This might be the best sex Matt has ever had in his life? Like, almost certainly, but he also knows he’s only twenty-one, there are higher highs to imagine. Point is, it’s very very good._ _

__Jonas is kinda weird, and like, experimental? He’s willing to try things — basically anything Matt can think up, he’s pretty sure Jonas would at least consider. There’s plenty of variety and adventure._ _

__Which okay, that’s amazing. But they can also just hang out all afternoon, and play video games, and make out on the couch, and jerk each other off, really chill and easy._ _

__Sometimes adventure isn’t the hottest thing. Sometimes the dream is to have someone cool to fool around with, and not be stressed or weird about it. Not that Jonas is not-weird about sex; it’s just that he’s equally weird about sex and everything else. Matt can handle that, appreciate it._ _

__So here they are, at the end of December, making out on Matt’s couch, and it’s fantastic, and Matt doesn’t know what they’re doing on like, multiple levels. Doesn’t know if they’re dating, doesn't really know where this is going, doesn’t know why Jonas is doing what he’s doing with his tongue right now._ _

__He does know it feels good. Jonas likes licking Matt’s ears, which is maybe weird, but also hot And he likes Matt’s fingernails raking against his skin, which is also cool. Jonas really likes his tattoos, which is fantastic, Matt loves his tattoos being liked, his tattoos being licked, etc._ _

__Matt’s shirt comes off, and then Jonas’s shirt comes off, and there’s more kissing, and it’s all going according to plan until Jonas gets distracted by the tattoo on Matt’s ribs, which yes, it’s very sensitive, but that means it’s fucking ticklish. Matt laughs until he can’t breath, and Jonas’s smile is so evil, it’s amazing. He might look innocent, clear blue eyes wide and unsuspicious, but he’s a sneak. Matt kind of adores that about him._ _

__Between the laughing and the fighting back things get unsexy enough to pause, and make themselves move from the couch to Matt’s bed. Even with his roommate in Iowa, the couch is supposed to be a sex-free zone. If Chris somehow found out what had happened it’d be bad — he threatened to stop acting as Matt’s personal slightly more reliable phrasebook, which would be a huge loss. There are still so many things Matt needs to learn how to say — he just has to figure out what they are first._ _

__What they are is going into the bedroom, and getting naked. Matt’s sure that’s the right thing to do._ _

__They kiss more, and touch each other, make each other feel good. Jonas doesn’t say anything in Swedish, or in English, just makes really nice sounds and tries his hardest to leave a hickey on Matt’s collar bone. It’s clumsy and glorious and possibly Matt’s favorite thing. It’s fun, and it’s them, and he thinks needs this in his life._ _

__Later, they’re in bed together, tired out, doing nothing, lying on their sides with their legs tangled together. Matt’s brain feels quiet and content. This works. This is awfully close to ideal._ _

__It might be time to stop asking questions and just enjoy what they’ve got going on. It isn’t like he wants anything to change. He just needs one answer, and then he’s letting go._ _

__“We’re cool, right? You’re happy?” Matt asks. “With…” He makes an expansive gesture, trying to indicate everything they are, and everything they aren’t, all of it._ _

__“Yes. Very much,” Jonas says. “And you?”_ _

__“Yeah,” Matt says. He’s great. This is great. He doesn’t know what would be greater, can’t imagine anything that would be better that could be a part of his everyday life._ _

__They’re going to fall asleep like this, Jonas’s long limbs taking up space in Matt’s bed, Matt not minding at all, enjoying it actually, though he doesn’t think he could say so. When they wake up in the morning Jonas will be holding onto him like some sort of scary deep sea squid, and Matt won’t want to move even though there’s practice and other actually fun things to do with their day, like eat breakfast and play videogames. Which okay, that’s all great, but not necessarily better than lying there with Jonas half on top of him and his arm asleep. Matt isn’t sure yet. Jonas will wake up, and blink at him all owly, and Matt will ask, “Sov du gott?”_ _

__And then Jonas will answer, and maybe he’ll say _bra_ , which means good, or maybe he’ll say _dålig_ , which means bad, or maybe he’ll say “dra åt helvete”, which means fuck off, cause Jonas isn’t always that nice when he first wakes up. Or maybe he’ll teach Matt a new word, that’d be super cool._ _

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to my sweetheart for betaing, & the friend who cheerlead while I was complaining.  
> the swedish is google tranlsated, so if it’s wrong, let me know.


End file.
